Censorship in Fahrenheit 451

In Fahrenheit 451, owning and reading books is illegal. Members of society focus only on entertainment, immediate gratification and speeding through life. If books are found, they are burned and their owner is arrested. If the owner refuses to abandon the books, as is the case with the Old Woman, he or she often dies, burning along with them. People with interests outside of technology and entertainment are viewed as strange, and possible threats.

In the book, Bradbury doesn't give a clear explanation of why censorship has become so great in this futuristic society. Rather, the author alludes to a variety of causes. Fast cars, loud music, and massive advertisements create an over stimulated society without room for literature, self-reflection, or appreciation of nature. Bradbury gives the reader a brief description of how society slowly lost interest in books, first condensing them, then relying simply on titles, and finally forgetting about them all together.

Bradbury also alludes to the idea that different "minority" groups were offended by certain types of literature. In his discussion with Montag, Beatty mentions dog lovers offended by books about cats, and cat lovers offended by books about dogs. The reader can only assume which minority groups Bradbury was truly referring to. Finally, in the Afterword to Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury clearly expresses his own sensitivity to attempts to restrict his writing. For example, he feels censored by letters suggesting he should give stronger roles to women or black men. Bradbury sees such suggestions and interventions as the first step towards censorship and book…...

Similar Documents

...Fahrenheit 451-“ The temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns” (title page). In Fahrenheit 451, science fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote a novel about censorship and about governments taking away the rights of citizens. In several ways, Bradbury’s theme seems to describe the circumstances Americans have been living in since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In the novel, as well as in the film, Bradbury presents the reader with his viewpoints on censorship which provide a parallel perspective comparing how American citizens have lived prior to and after the 9/11 attacks.
Bradbury’s novel begins with explicit details describing the burning of books. The opening is somewhat alarming because burning books is not what a normal person would consider to be the duty of a firefighter. The government has made it forbidden and unlawful to read books. As a reader, I could not help myself from thinking back to the times of Communism in the Soviet Union and Nazism in Hitler’s Germany. During the 1950s, in protest to Communism and Nazism, many of the same token books were being burned here in the US.
In the film a symbolic relationship between black, evil, Communism, and death is painted by the firefighters jet-black hardened helmets and their jet black flameproof jackets. The color black seems to symbolize the coming of death. The firefighters wore all black uniforms and they rode on a very red box-like shaped vehicle filled with petrol. The red could......

...In Ray Bradbury's futuristic novel Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist, Guy Montag, is influenced by several characters. In this novel, the government does not want their citizens to think; therefore it is illegal to read books. At the beginning of the story Clarisse, Montag's neighbor, is walking with Montag and she asks him a very eccentric question. “Are you happy?” (10). As a result, Clarisse influences Montag in that he is not sure if he really is happy or not. Throughout the book, he is questioning himself. Soon, he realizes, “He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself” (12). This change occurs in Part One and continues on with him for the duration of the novel. In addition, Montag begins to question his role as a fireman and whether he, likes his job or not. Throughout this novel, Montag changes greatly. “Rain even tastes good” (21). Clarisse says that rain taste like wine. She wants Montag to taste the rain, but he refuses. Later, he tastes it when he is alone. This action symbolizes change or rebirth.
The elderly woman also influences Montag to change. The elderly woman possesses books and was reported to authorities for it. The elderly woman makes Montag curious about why books are so astonishing. “The woman knelt among the books, touching the drenched (with kerosene) leather and cardboard, reading the gilt titles with her fingers while her eyes accused Montag. 'You can't ever have my books'” (38). The elderly woman did not want to leave her......

...The book “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury was about a fireman name Guy Montag. Montag does the opposite from what regular fireman do. He starts fires instead of putting them out. Books in Montag society is forbidden to read and if caught reading the book would be set on fire. Instead of reading, that society watches large amounts of television as big as the wall and listens to the radio attached to their ears. It was not normal for pedestraisn to talk and have meaningful conversations until Montag met a teenager name Clarisse. Clarisse was a strange girl that opened up Montag thoughts. She asked him about his work and what made him become a fireman. One question that really got him to think was the statement “Are you happy”(Bradbury 10). Montag believed that Clarisse was odd. She wasn’t like the norm of the society. She read books, walked the city like a pedestrain and, had meaningful conversations. After that encounter with Clarisse a number of events started to happen to him; his wife Mildred tried to commit sucide with perscription pills, a woman that hid books in her home decides to burn a live with her books, and Clarisse is killed in a car accident., With all these tragic events occuring, Montag tries to find a solution to this epidemic. The society has become controlled from power, a since of censorship. Bradbury has shown his viewpoint of society through this novel.
Through this attempt, Bradbury got Readers views for Fahrenheit 451 qnd the meaning that......

...Fahrenheit 451
In Fahrenheit 451, there really is no such thing as “family”. Where real people once took on that role, now it is filled by an inanimate object, the TV. Their society is based around the censorship that is provided by the government through the television they watch in place of reading, which is illegal. Because the censorship applies to everything else in their society, even the way “families” interact with each other, the TV walls have become the only way they can ever feel like they have a true family.
Love between family members is faked. It is bought with expensive things such as the TV walls that Mildred, Montag’s wife, adored as if they truly were her family. When Montag bought her the last wall, it wasn’t even a year later that she talked of getting another, completely disregarding that he could not afford to buy another. Instead she was focused on expanding her “family”. The so-called “families” are more like strangers. They know each other’s names, they live together, eat together, and the spouses sleep in the same bed together but they are distant, not really knowing anything about each other.
Families do not even stand by each other like ours do. When Montag walks into the TV parlor to find Mildred and her friends from her TV watching club and talking about an approaching war he becomes angry by their superficiality. In his anger he reads a poem to them, upsetting them all and making one woman cry even Rather than stand by her husband, Mildred......

...Name
Professor
Class
Date
Fahrenheit 451 (word count: 1,426)
The book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury conveys to the reader that censorship and technology can be a tool used by governments to restrict human freedoms supported by endless access to knowledge and intimate relationships. The message of the book is that censorship and technologies, without limit, will erode the nature of human freedoms experienced in a society that values access to knowledge, books, and deep thinking.
The world within Fahrenheit 451 can be characterized by a population controlled by media and extreme levels of knowledge censorship. The media is the tool employed by the government and embraced by most citizens as a means of steering the group aimlessly through life; vicariously living out any lingering ambitions and motivations towards non-conformity through the characters inside the television. In an effort to stifle creative thinking, spiritual growth, resistance, and the human tendency towards a general thirst for knowledge, the government has issued legislation that makes books illegal. Books are considered a social evil due to their inherent ability to encourage individuals to question existing frameworks and think for themselves. Therefore, the society in the book lives in a world where history does not exist and the reality is constructed and delivered through the television.
The book’s protagonist, Montag, represents an individual that makes a transition from a...

...Ray Bradbury is a master of characterization techniques. He uses his expertise, such as indirect characterization, in the creation of Fahrenheit 451. In addition to learning about the explicit qualities of Bradbury’s characters, readers receive deeper insight as we carefully read his stories. In Fahrenheit 451, we learn more indirect information about the protagonist, Guy Montag, through the words used to introduce this character. We have a clear view of Montag’s thoughts and feelings that lead him into his own transformation.
When the novel begins, we learn that Montag’s values are similar to that of the society he lives in. The culture in which Montag is accustomed to is one without cogitation or analysis. Their society believes that books cause pain and should not exist. Everyone in this society believes they live in a carefree, painless world beyond having burdens. In the first sentence of the novel, Montag shows how much he loves his work as a fireman: “It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (Bradbury 1). The job of a fireman in this society is to set fires, not to eradicate them. Houses that are revealed to contain books, by those who set off the alarms, are destroyed by firemen. Montag enjoys watching books wither and disintegrate in front of his eyes, but never thinks why he does it. His ideas begin to change when he walks home one evening and runs into a young woman named Clarisse McClellan, who lives on the same street......

...Fahrenheit 451 Part 2: The Sieve and the Sand Ilana Oleynik
11. Montag’s society programs thoughts so completely that “firemen are rarely necessary”. The firemen are used for burning books, to make sure that no one in the society reads or owns them. The firemen aren’t really necessary because the society already doesn’t read books or seem to care about them. They are in the world of technology and don’t want to gain knowledge or have anything to do with learning new information or facing the real world. Montag’s society programs their thoughts to have fun and be care-free. Books are something they already naturally don’t want to read or think about. This is why the firemen aren’t really necessary.
12. The society’s wall-to-wall television has made the society forget about Christ. Television and technology has influenced the society incredibly. Since books are prohibited, people don’t read the Bible. They are shut out from religion and learning about God. Television has taken the society away from reality and the important things in life. The society seems to praise technology more than they praise God.
13. Montag is intrigued by the information in the books and wants to learn more about them, and is curious about what secrets they hold. Mildred knows the trouble that one can get into when seen with the book, so she wants to leave Montag and not be a part of his life.
14. Montag’s childhood memory of trying to fill a sieve with sand on the beach to get a dime......

...unavoidable death. Granger, a fellow book lover, illustrates this point when he says “…And hold on to one thought: You’re not important. You are not anything. Someday the load we are carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had books a long time ago we didn’t use what we got out of them” (Bradbury 163-4).
Typically, I would have never chosen a book from this genre. Yet, it has opened my eyes to what a treasure trove libraries are as well as how invasive the internet and technology have become. With technology becoming more accessible every day and TV becoming more popular, books are slowly fading from our lives, numbing our minds and hearts to the beauty of the written word on a piece of paper.
Works Cited
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451;. New York: Ballantine, 1953. Print....

...Charlene Henderson
Professor Davis
English 102
13 November 2014
Fahrenheit 451 and the Society of Americans
Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, illustrates a future that is remarkably similar to our current society. His science fiction novel tells the story of a community that relies on technology advancements to guide them in their everyday lives. His characters live in a fast passed society where they don’t read books, watch a lot of TV and drive very fast just like the people today. Bradbury does a nice job at predicting what the world would be like.
We are always demanding more advanced machinery, and from the past, we have grown into a much more technological society. Lately, more and more people not only want more technology, they want it to be faster and faster. Faster computers, faster internet connections, better and faster cell phone connections, faster phones, and faster and more powerful cars, just to name a few. People don’t want to waste time anymore waiting for things to load even though they spend hours and hours doing meaningless things on their phones and computers. We want things done quicker without as much effort. We want things to take less to do them so we can have more for other things.
Although Bradbury’s technology is more advanced than ours, we too are becoming a world consumed by technology advancements. Our society is similarly addicted to television and many people aren’t choosing to read for leisure anymore. Especially when TV...

...Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, was written at the onset of the fifties as a call to the American people to reflect on how the dominant social values of their times were effecting both the lives of individual Americans and their government. Fahrenheit 451 attacks utopian government and focuses on society's foolishness of always being politically correct. (Mogen 113). According to Mogen, Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world in which the American Dream has turned into a nightmare because it has been superficially understood. (Mogen 107) In order to understand Bradley's social critique, it is essential to realize that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 in the wake of World War II and the early days of the Cold War, in a political climate that was increasingly favoring security over the civil liberties of individuals (Mogen 124, 114). Due to the Cold War, Americans continuously felt threatened by the idea of communism and the idea of hostility from communist countries (Mogen 115). Any association with communism would immediately ostracize an American politician (Mogen 115). In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury displays a futuristic utopian society where "the people did not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations." (Mogen 111). About sixty years later, some would argue that our society has been guilty of similar downfalls. (Book Rags) The government in Fahrenheit 451 bans books because they do not appreciate the thoughts books created......

...Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
The story under discussion is written by Ray Bradbury. The title of the story is Fahrenheit 451. The title is in the strong position there. It refers to the temperature that Bradbury understood to be the auto ignition of paper.
The main idea of the novel is to show a future American totalitarian society where books are outlawed. Human relationships are portrayed as dying ones.
Author shows people who have lost communication with each other, with nature, with the intellectual heritage of mankind. People rush to or from work, never talk about what they think or feel, but rant about pointless things and admire only material values and "firemen" who burn any book that are found with their owners. They surround themselves with interactive television which is projected directly on the walls and fill their free time watching television, watching endless and useless TV-series. The state is on the verge of a total destructive war, which is happened in the end of the book.
Now we get to know the main characters of the story.
The plot of the novel is built around life and destiny of Guy Montag. Guy Montag is a "fireman" hired to burn the things of those who read outlawed books. The author doesn’t give us a good portrait of the character: he makes him act, speak, think – and lets the reader judge for himself. Throughout the entire narration there are a lot of dialogues which serve the purpose of characterization. The reader understands that Guy is he...

...Fahrenheit 451 extra credit
Fundamentals of communication
11- 09-15
Fahrenheit 451
1. Clarisse describes a past that Montag has never known: one with front porches, gardens, and rocking chairs. What do these items have in common, and how might their removal have encouraged Montag's repressive society?
This was a very interesting scene that vividly depicted a picture with just a couple of simple words. The lines that she acted were superb. Clarisse sat out side during the dark when montage walked by and noticed that this girl figured out who he was before she saw him she announced that “I can smell the kerosene of you. So you must be a fireman! Not the ones that used to put fires out like in the past but ones that start them”. He responded with “well this is my job”. She then preceded and look up in the sky and wondered to herself and asked Montage if he ever noticed the green grass, aroma of the flowers, etc. She then abruptly said, “What about those cars? Do you think they ever look down and think about this stuff”? Do you think they even notice it? I mean these cars drive so fast that they even needed to make the billboards larger. She said. there use to be a time when they were only 25 feet long but now days they are a 100. She asks Montage, “Did you ever look down and notice this”? He replied “No not really”.
The reason I depicted this scene is because it gives a lot of detail about the repressive society that is brainwashed to take pills, watch TV, and be......

...face in the future, the novel Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury is a vicarious insight into a dystopian world. Fahrenheit should be continued in the syllabus as it contains universal themes and textual integrity that is still applicable in today’s modern society. Through the study of the novel, students can use Fahrenheit 451 as a medium to understand how concerns such as censorship and the negative impact of technology affects society, whilst also allowing students to evaluate their own understanding of it.
Fahrenheit 451 is worthy of continual appreciation, due to its indelible and unique insight into the social scars caused by censorship. Bradbury employs an animal metaphor, “pigeon-winged books” in order to analogise the capacity of a bird to move freely, to independent thought and critical thinking that books facilitate. The burning of these books shows the suppression of intellectual freedom and independent thought, mirroring the regimes of Hitler’s Nazi party and Stalin’s totalitarian regime in Russia. The symbolic meaning suggested in the title of the second chapter, “The Sieve and the Sand” refers to the sand that represents the knowledge that Montag seeks and the sieve that represents his mind trying to retain this knowledge. The symbol shows the oppressive nature of the government, consequently resulting in a society where people minds are incapable of serious metacognition. In Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury’s shows the effects of censorship through the suppression......

...Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury is a futuristic novel that incorporates symbolism to represent specific meanings which are in the novel. Bradbury's use of symbolism throughout the novel, makes the book moving and powerful by using symbolism to reinforce the ideas of anti-censorship.
The title of the novel: Fahrenheit 451 is a symbol itself. If you break it down and understand the hidden meaning of it, readers can see why Bradbury decided this specific title for his book. Paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit and as readers read the novel they will understand what the book is about and how the title represents it.
The Hearth and the Salamander, the title of part one, is the second example of symbolism. The title suggests two things which have to do with fire. Hearth, which people would think of a fire place, can be represented by warmth and goodness. It shows how fire can be used for good and in a non-destructive way. As for Salamander, this can be defined as a small lizard type amphibian which in mythology is known to tolerate fire without getting burned by it.
As readers get through part one, they can see how Bradbury uses the salamander as a symbolic meaning for Guy Montag. Guy Montag’s character can be portrayed as a salamander because he works with fire, tolerating its danger yet he continuously believes that he can escape the fire and survive, much like a salamander does.
The third symbol which is demonstrated in the novel is the phoenix. A phoenix can be defined......

...In the book Fahrenheit 451, reading and owning books is illegal. Members of society describe in the book focus on entertainment, immediate, and gratification. If books are found they are burned, and their owner is arrested. If the owner refuses to let the fireman burn the books, as in the case with the old woman, he or she often dies, burning along with the books. People with interests outside technology and entertainment are viewed as strange and odd people. Censorship is one of the major themes presented in Fahrenheit 451. The impact of censorship is illustrated through submission in appearance, behavior, and thought.
The association between appearance and social acceptance is already apparent in our daily lives. In order to be accepted in a group of people, we tend to do the things that our peers seem to be doing, and as a result censorship in appearance has become a common example of submission today. In the book Montag realizes that a big part of being a fireman is though appearance. “Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn ‘em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That’s our official slogan.” (pg. 8) Are the words that Montag says to Clarisse while walking. When Montag was saying these words to Clarisse, he was probably saying them to fit in that society, where people that don’t have some interests in technology are considered odd and strange. Between Montag and Clarisse’s conversation, Clarisse happens to ask Guy Montag if he ever read any of the books...